DILI (AFP) - From his terrifying footage of the 1991 massacre at Dili's Santa
Cruz cemetery, British journalist and filmmaker Max Stahl has tracked every step
of East Timor's transition to independence.

Having helped break the Timor story to the world, Stahl says it is now his
life's mission to give East Timor an audio-visual record of its bloody split
from Indonesia and its tumultuous first years of independence.

Without it, he says, no one will remember where the tiny half-island state
came from or what values were there at its birth.

"It is enormously important because you cannot forge an identity without
memory," says the 53-year-old, sporting a hat in the black, red and yellow
colours of his adopted country.

Stahl's audio-visual centre in the Timorese capital of Dili is devoted to
preserving that memory in digital recordings of events leading up to and after
the 2002 declaration of independence.

Backed by the United Nations and the French national audiovisual institute,
the centre aims to "gather and preserve East Timor's recent history and
culture in audiovisual form," he said.

The story begins around November 12, 1991 when Stahl filmed Indonesian troops
firing into hundreds of peaceful demonstrators in Dili.

Some 270 people were killed, another 400 were injured and 250 were listed as
missing, according to East Timorese figures.

Stahl's exclusive footage shocked the world and humiliated Jakarta, which
held a referendum on self-rule eight years later, which in turn led to
independence in 2002.

The Briton has been there through thick and thin, seeing the euphoria of the
declaration turn into violent infighting between the security forces in 2006 and
an assassination attempt against President Jose Ramos-Horta this year.

He has not lost hope that East Timor, one of the poorest countries in the
world, can become a viable country.

"It will take time but this country will become more mature," he
says.

And if East Timor -- a country where almost half the population is under 18
years of age -- is to finally grow up it must first form an understanding of the
past, he says.

"They don't have to forget that what unites the Timorese people is the
struggle for independence against Indonesia," he says.

East Timorese technician Ivo Tilman, who works at the audiovisual centre,
said he wanted to honour the victims of the independence struggle by preserving
their stories for future generations.

"It is very important for us and for the next generations to know what
happened," he said.

"I lost my brother, who was a clandestine warrior, after he was
kidnapped by Indonesian special forces in 1995. We still don't know how he was
killed. My mother lost six brothers during the occupation from 1975."

But despite the upheaval of 2006, which saw tens of thousands of people flee
factional violence in Dili, and the assassination attempt in February this year,
he said he was optimistic for his country.

"I am very optimistic about my country's future if we learn about our
past and try not to repeat the 2006 crisis," he said.